Many video service providers transmit video information to viewers in response to an explicit request from the viewer. The provision of video on-demand (“VOD”) service is well known in the art, and is in distinction from broadcast transmission of video information, which occurs according to a schedule. With VOD, the actual video programs transmitted are determined by the viewer and often cannot be individually predicted. However, on an aggregate basis, many video services providers can predict viewer demands for VOD programming.
Video service providers store the VOD programs as digital video files. These are frequently called “video assets” and are structured as “packages”, which refers to well known industry standards where data is formatted and content is defined in a certain manner. This allows the digital video file of the content to be distinguished from meta-data, which is data that pertains to the video information. The use of “packages” facilitates processing of the files in various ways. The video information is often encoded using a standardized format, such as MPEG, which is well known in the art. Within a given encoding standard, there may be various encoding formats supported.
The video service provider may store a video program using one encoding format, but may convert it (“transcode”) it to another format for distribution. This may be necessary because the target encoding format may be compatible with other equipment and may be able to only display a lower resolution. Typically, using a lower resolution format requires less data to convey the video information, and hence less bandwidth is required for transmission of the file. Thus, there is typically a direct relationship between the encoding scheme for encoding video information, the associated quality of resolution of the video images displayed, and the associated bandwidth required to transmit the video data.
Video service providers are usually concerned about the bandwidth involved in distributing the video, because it is a finite resource. Regardless of the distribution technology used, managing bandwidth allocation for different users is challenging. In many cases, service providers will charge different rates based on the amount of bandwidth used. Consequently, service providers are concerned how much bandwidth is used by a viewer because it can impact the quality of service (i.e., the video quality) that other viewers receive.
Because video service providers can transcode a video program in different ways, and the use of a particular encoding scheme impacts the bandwidth associated with transmitting that program, it would be desirable for a video service provider to be able to effectively manage how bandwidth is allocated based on which encoding scheme is used.